TAKING ON FUEL

Here’s one of the stories they don’t write up in the sailing magazines.  We needed fuel, and we needed it today in preparation for leaving the country.  That seems like a simple task.  Just drive the boat over to the fuel dock, and fill up.  Well, as my dearly beloved is wont to say, nothing is ever simple.  First off, there is no fuel dock; there is only a gas station, which is about a hundred yards from the wharf.  OK, so we’ll ferry the diesel in jugs.  We’ve done that before.  We have four five-gallon jugs, and we need about sixty gallons, so we’ll need to make four trips.  Did I mention that the wharf is for big ships, so it’s a concrete wall with a steel ladder.  Oh, and there’s a big swell running, so the dinghy rises and falls several feet every few seconds.  Hey, we’re able seamen, so we grab the ladder on the rise, throw the jugs up on the wharf and climb the ladder.  Teetering on the top rung, cut off roughly, flush with the top of the wharf, I curse whoever built it for being a cheapskate with the steel.  Would one more handhold have been so difficult?  So now we’re at the pump, and the man says we can only have 200 liters because they’re short until the next supply ship arrives.  We haul the first set of jugs back to the wharf, and use a bit of rope to lower them into the bucking dinghy.  Motor back through the chop.  Empty the jugs into the tanks.  Repeat two more times.  In the rain.